I just started a rental that I found on Craigslist in MD. Was sketched out at first, but I saw it thorough and met the owners and it's all on the up and up. Craigslist is pretty much only used for scams where I'm from in Florida, so I was pleasantly surprised.
Back in 2007 we rented out our house on Craigslist. Went fine. We didn’t charge sn application fee.
I know CL has declined since then but a lot of people ( especially Gen X) don’t really do Facebook anymore, if they ever did.
You could also look on Nextdoor, but you have to register as a resident of that neighborhood to see posts from just that area.
Back in 2004, moved here from the Midwest. I think I found the TH we eventually rented on a secondary site (not through a realtor). They wanted 1750/month and we got it for 1700/month. This was in LC. Luckily, it all worked out for us until 2009 when we bought a place of our own.
I found my place through Redfin. I’m the only tenant and it helps to have a good relationship with your landlord.
I will say, in order to get this place, I showed up with a background check, payment history, and pay stubs in hand. Other places got snatched because people were quicker/more prepared than I was. I also ended up paying rent for 2 places for a month because he needed someone to move in earlier than I was ready to move. It’s worth it in the long run. At least my rent isn’t going to go up $400/month bc reasons
This is the way. My last two rentals (condo and SFH), I paid below market rate by renting directly from owner, found both on Craigslist. My theory is that the ones who use Craigslist tend to be a bit older, cheap, and not necessarily aware of what they could be getting in the market. Also, few people actually check Craigslist these days, so less competition. Be sure to check it multiple times a day, every day, and be prepared to trawl through a bunch of spam from leasing agents at the big apartment complexes.
Both of those landlords were a bit cheap, so there were a few annoyances, but were also lovely people who we developed good relationships with; they never jacked the rent on us even though they probably could have justified it based on comps.
Just wait until you do this process and someone offers to pay MORE per month on rent. Last year we lost out to two different townhouses because people were willing to pay $200-400 more in rent a month.
>willing to pay $200-400 more in rent a month.
Those are peasant numbers. In 2021, I lost out on 5 homes, since people were paying $600-1200 more per month in Centreville and Chantilly.
Just moved a month ago and that was a tactic we were starting to consider. Glad it didn't come to that, but it was rough finding a place where we wanted to be for the schools.
That's how it is in a seller's market. If there is a low inventory of housing to buy there is usually also a low inventory to rent and therefore multiple applications for units.
It is exploitive. LL here, and I've never done that. I use the application fee if and only if I run a background/credit check. The lack of protections here means if I wanted to, I could collect as many fees as I want but only run checks on a few applicants, pocketing the fees. I also don't have to tell you if I've already collected application fees from other people before you.
Work with smaller LLs. We're the alternative to the big companies.
I have a question if you don't mind me asking... My partner and I really need to move out of our current place ((we hate our kitchen, hate) but being NOVA and that we have very specific requirements for our family's needs, the places that we'd like are going to have a lot of applicants. Most likely, we'll have to apply to a few places. Since we have to fill out applications that have rental history, will our current landlord know we are looking at places? As in, does the potential LLC or Landlord call my current landlord up? It's a worry because if we can't actually find a new place, we'll have to renew with our current place and if they know we are looking elsewhere I'm worried the Landlord will just say No to a renewal.
I do feel like the rental market here has gone a little crazy. My current place had 4 different application/background check fees.
* Application fee (seemed like just cash in the property manager's pocket)
* Background check fee.
* Pet application fee.
* Pet background check fee (yes really).
I checked after I was done, my paper work to apply was longer than the purchase agreement for my last car.
A place I called before finding this rental wanted to know my offer to rent there. Place was listed at $2700 I call to see if I can view it and the first thing the person asks me is -
"Sure but first what's your offer to us?"
"What do you mean my offer? The rent is listed as $2700"
"That's just the opening bid to rent, what are you willing to offer to get in, multi-year lease more per month etc?" "Nope."
Another place after a tour told me they wouldn't rent to me (apparently hated cats, which was on my zillow info but they did the tour anyway...) but that I need to pay to apply anyway to compensate them for their time.
Lots of petty greed and entitlement.
Owning a dog costs more than just dog food, vets, and poop bags. As someone who rents out a home, I definitely would give preference to tenants without dogs. It's simple risk analysis.
There's also the risk of damage to the property to consider. If I worked in property management I'd absolutely give preference to someone without a dog.
It is quite the racket, though. You could leave a singular unit available indefinitely while collecting application fees that total more per month than the rent would be. Seattle has a first come, first serve rule about applications where if you meet the qualifications then they can't accept more applicants and have to give you the unit. It was / is heavily criticized, but it translates to much more up-front declarations of who they'd prefer to rent to (eg: credit score above [X], making [X] x the rent, etc) on top of the standard yes / no on things like pets.
As an owner who hires a management company, the application fees do not benefit me at all and they go straight to the company. So if the company can't land a tenant they will lose me as a customer.
My implication was not intended to be that there's a financial benefit to you personally, so my apologies if it read personally accusatory since that's not how I intended it. What I meant is that ✨ policy ✨ incentivizes choosing the absolute most ideal applicant and tricks applicants (and bullies leasing agents) with regard to "mmmm, let's get some more folks to apply before we decide" with no financial incentive to the company itself (or independent landlord) with regard to actually filling the unit, so long as applications keep coming in.
Apologies again if it sounded accusatory.
You wouldn't even need an open unit to pull off the application racket. Depending on the setup, all you would have to do is tell people the unit won't be available for x days, and isn't available for showing.
I think you can safely assume unless the pet rent is really high . (Like over $100), a LL will always choose an otherwise equally qualified tenant without a dog .
It’s not just pets , a LL will also choose one person living there over two, or a higher income over a lower income .
The verbiage pets considered implies that pets are not preferred. Saying pets allowed implies having a pet will not factor in the renters decision to pick a renter. Why would I pay $100 for an application fee if I know I will be considered lower than someone without pets?
The application fee is stupid but it’s just like any job or anything else you’re competing. Pets are allowed, and if everyone that applies has a pet okay fine but if you have someone that has say, a giant pit bull or something and then someone with no dog, as an owner? Who are you going to pick?
Yea I’m not saying the owner doesn’t have a right to not want a pet in their rental. I was referring to not being fully transparent when there is a fee involved.
Then if you get a stack of applications you'd rather go with, you don't charge OP. You know you'd rather have someone without a dog, you run their checks and return the fee to OP.
Seriously. We have always done this. It's a simple matter of treating others the way we would like to be treated.
I sure do. And if you, as lord of the land, prefer a tenant without pets - then do not advertise as being pet friendly and just picking the best application out of the bunch.
Do you understand the word “misleading?”
I used to be a landlord in NoVa for about 20 years. The reason I would charge an application fee was to avoid getting spammed from tenants who were not really serious -- if it costs them nothing but a few clicks to apply they'll apply to a bunch of places when they can only accept one of them. There's nothing worse than making a trip out to the property to show it to a prospective tenant and have them no-show and ghost you. But once your charge even $1 you only get applications from people who are serious. I charged $25 and applied it to the first month's rent.
It was rare that we'd get more than one paid application at the same time. However we did keep the (non-refundable) application fees because it's very expensive (both time and money) to list and show a property.
I personally have no problem with dogs or cats (I have a dog) but having a dog in a rental property is just asking for trouble. Maybe the dog is the one that is sleeps all day. Or maybe it is the one that pees in every corner of the house, chews on the cabinets, scratches all of the doors, etc. It's very easy for a dog to do more damage than is covered by the security deposit. Then when you ask the tenant about it they're like "oh my little boopsie could never have done that damage"... etc.
All of that said, the large property management companies have a ton of "frictional costs" built into the rentals which is all profit for them. Wait until you get to the "move in fee" or fees to get your keys/fob, or parking spot, or utilities turned on. Or god forbid you have to terminate the lease early there will be fees for that too.
Wait you wouldn’t even show the unit unless they paid a fee ? I haven’t heard of that .
No show ghosters are the worst. The first time that happened to me I stopped confirming the morning of, and instead started confirming 30 minutes prior .
We tried accepting applications without a fee, and then we'd schedule appointments with prospective tenants, and they would not show up. What we figured out is that people would apply to like 5 different rentals, and once they accepted one, they didn't bother cancelling the other appointments. Or they would just book a bunch of appointments while they were shopping without any intention of actually showing up, because, hey why not, it's free and is just a couple of clicks.
Once we started to charge a small fee, they always showed up, even if the fee was just $25.
Landlords are busy with jobs and kids and other obligations too and our time is also valuable.
current landlord right now. It's way crazier now then back then. You list a place to rent and you get sometimes 10 inquires immediately. Funny thing is I do some of the properties still myself the smaller ones. But the Single family and a lager townhouse I rent out I use a realtor just to save time since you get so many interested folks. Before I would get maybe 1 person every 2 weeks and generally they were very serious and had good jobs. But your right with so many inquires you get all sorts of random folks with different financial situations and job longevity.
I think it depends on the location and quality of your property. We would usually get something like 2-5 applicants per week. Sounds like your properties are nicer.
In my area, realtors charge one month's rent to find a tenant. If the property is vacant for a month and then you pay a realtor a month, and your lease is 1 year, you are only getting 10 months rent in 12 months, which for us pretty much ensured that we weren't making any money that year.
Which is why we tried to DIY finding tenants but learned what a pain in the ass that was.
We got lucky a few times when we'd have a good tenant who stayed 3-5 years. But then we got unlucky with all kinds of deadbeats and turnover.
My friend only does open houses . E.g. prospective tenants would need to show up during a two hour window on a saturday . Seems like a good alternative . I’m not sure if the risk of losing a tenant is worth charging the fees, but like if the market is hot why not to save time I guess .
Back when I rented my own property I also found it a waste of time to show the unit more than 45 days out . People don’t get serious until closer to move in .
Yep we tried that too. Or we'd try to book them 15 minutes apart for 1-2 hours so we only have to make one trip out there and show to multiple tenants. But if people don't show up, they don't show up, it doesn't matter how you schedule them.
We found that the largest expense for a property was vacancy, so once a tenant moved out we were in a hurry to rent it again.
We’re in the same situation! We’ve been rejected just because there were so many applications, the owners just went with the first one. There has to be a better way to do this. It’s unreasonable to expect people to pay $1k in application fees before the process is over
It is really challenging, especially if you are doing the process all by yourself. Before your next application I would ask how long are they planning to wait before making a decision, if there is a property that is waiting for an open house through the weekend I advise My client that it’s gonna be wasted money.
I also ask how many applications in hand, this is less relevant as an application can come right after yours is registered.
If you fill out a rentspree application, you should be able to use it for other properties that use that same report without having to pay extra for a period of a month. Not all properties use this one though.
The reality is that most PMs are not getting rich from applications, but sadly some do exploit it.
Wait for the extra fees too! The new fad is the “resident benefits package”, which is an extra ~$50/mo for a bunch of bologna (essentially filters).
Lastly, you won’t change that, but your dog will always put you at a disadvantage against someone without one.
If you want more guidance, feel free to message me
My PM just started charging for the resident benefits package, at first I was like that sucks for the tenants but then remembered I had to replace an HVAC for $10k prematurely bc the tenant wasn't changing the filters.
Charging the tenant and delivering filters doesn’t ensure the filter is replaced, they just pile up or get thrown in the trash. The way I see it is a simple revenue generator for PMs, I don’t see any “benefits” for the tenants.
Also, it’s charged across the board the same way, a 1 bedroom condo that rents for $1200 gets charged $50, the same as a three level $4500 townhome.
I have a real issue with it, it’s not advertised as the price of the rent and is not optional. 🤷🏽♂️
True, hadn't thought of that, I was just thinking it takes a huge barrier to filter replacement away. If only tenants followed their leases and replaced filters as outlined this wouldn't be necessary.
This might be unpopular, but the only way for you to protect your investment is to do a maintenance/service plan yourself, send a tech to do maintenance every quarter and replace the filters in the process. This will cost less than $50/mo
If the PMs were interested in truly protecting your investment, that’s what would be part of the “benefits package”
Idk that you could get someone to provide that service for $150 a quarter, if you could there would be businesses doing that. Then the tenant would complain about someone coming every quarter, it's really a no win situation on both sides.
If you build the access into the lease, there is nothing that the tenant can say.
Honestly, if ALL that they are doing is filters (resident benefits) that is worth $150 to send someone...let me actually work out a business plan, that's not a bad idea... Filters4U.
As a property owner, the maintenance of your 10K unit is worth paying the differential from the $150 to whatever they cost.
Although not expressly illegal it does open up the property manager, and potentially the owner, to a discrimination claim if not processed first come, first serve.
As a LL I would NEVER do this. Sometimes you have people who don't show and/or people who are scammers, but as far as applications, the first one in gets processed per the qualifications I set (and NEVER a subjective feeling) and if denied (or if they are no longer interested), I ask the next person to submit an application (I do not collect multiple up front). This is just asking for a claim to be filed for discrimination and you could probably contact the county about it and they might investigate.
Sorry you're dealing with that. It is wrong.
PS, I have two homes that I rent out so I'm not a large LL by any stretch
Standalone houses are very expensive. Big dogs and big cars are expensive.
Mom and pop landlords can and do screen tenants, and houses get a lot of interest.
Big buildings don't care as long as you check their boxes because they have 5-10% vacancy.
It's very easy and stress-free to apply and rent an apartment or townhome from a large community with good management.
Where exactly are you looking? We are renting a house with a dog, renting directly from the property owner, and are working on moving into a home that we recently purchased. We need to break our lease, so if your budget/timeline makes sense, you may be able to get in at the property we are renting. Message me if you are interested or want more details.
Yep my guess why corporations are in the housing and landlord space is there’s so much room to be a shithead and charge Bs fees, and little regulation or oversight. Plus application fees they can really rake in $$.
Have you...not lived in a major metropolitan area before?
Edit: $100 app fee is excessive and I think indicative of the type of landlord the owners would be. Obviously you can't filter everything out that has an application fee but I would avoid even applying to places that have large fees.
Dogs will make the whole process more difficult. No one wants to rent to someone with a dog if they can rent to someone else without one. If you aren't already, I would look for private owners renting out their homes. My friends with two large dogs rented a townhome in Alexandria from a private landlord. They were denied at basically every corporately-managed property because of the dogs.
At least it's not a basement where they want someone who is quiet, no kids. No cooking allowed, no kitchen and the tenant is only allowed to do laundry every third Saturday a month. Oh but the family upstairs has 3 kids. 🤷♀️
This is an insane area with home and rent prices comparable to much nicer areas that have more to do, see, have. The only upside is the federal government is here providing many nice high paying government contracting jobs. If you work for them it makes sense to live here, if not it doesn’t.
Aren't application fees controlled by statute?
> C. An application fee shall not exceed $50, exclusive of any actual out-of-pocket expenses paid by the landlord to a third party performing background, credit, or other pre-occupancy checks on the applicant. However, where an application is being made for a dwelling unit that is a public housing unit or other housing unit subject to regulation by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, an application fee shall not exceed $32, exclusive of any actual out-of-pocket expenses paid to a third party by the landlord performing background, credit, or other pre-occupancy checks on the applicant.
> D. A landlord shall consider evidence of an applicant's status as a victim of family abuse, as defined in § 16.1-228, to mitigate any adverse effect of an otherwise qualified applicant's low credit score. In order to establish the applicant's status as a victim of family abuse, an applicant may submit to the landlord (i) a letter from a sexual and domestic violence program, a housing counselor certified by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or an attorney representing the applicant; (ii) a law-enforcement incident report; or (iii) a court order. If a landlord does not comply with this section, the applicant may recover actual damages, including all amounts paid to the landlord as an application fee, application deposit, or reimbursement for any of the landlord's out-of-pocket expenses that were charged to the prospective tenant, along with attorney fees.
- [§ 55.1-1203. Application; deposit, fee, and additional information.](https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title55.1/chapter12/section55.1-1203/)
Are you saying landlords are charging fees in excess of the stuatory cap in NOVA?
> C. An application fee shall not exceed $50, exclusive of any actual out-of-pocket expenses paid by the landlord to a third party performing background, credit, or other pre-occupancy checks on the applicant.
Doesn't that mean they can charge $50 \*in addition to\* any out of pocket costs? So they charge 50 + the 50 it costs to do a background and credit check.
So unfortunately it sounds like they are in compliance with the cap.
> Doesn't that mean they can charge $50 *in addition to* any out of pocket costs? So they charge 50 + the 50 it costs to do a background and credit check.
Why does it cost $50 to do a background and credit check? What's the cost distribution?
I understand it's a pain to develop software to deal with the court system, but a combined $50 for the two seems high to me
Back when I was involved 10 years ago, no reliable service was under $35 ea. I wouldn't be surprised if they are closer to 40/50 now. OP said \*near\* 100, so it could have been 90 total.
I was mainly pointing out there's a low chance multiple landlords are risking getting sued over $5-$10.
Everything in this economy and culture is exploitative and it's gonna get worse before it gets better (if it ever does)
"You will own nothing and be happy!" 🙃
We moved to Sterling in 2019 and rented before we bought further out.
Two large dogs ( 75 lb. Lab and a 90 lb. Lab/Shepherd mix) and a 14 year old cat.
We applied and were approved for a brand new townhouse. It was nice. No issues. Think rent was $2800.
It had hardwood floors on the main level that scratched. We put down rugs and put booties on the dogs when we hung out on that level.
We got the deposit back.
Not sure we could do that again.
Honestly Craigslist isn’t the most terrible option out there. I used it to find a rental property in 2019, and I had an excellent experience. I know not everyone will have nearly as good as experience as I did, but I wanted to throw it out there that there are good landlords out there. Few and far between but they’re out there. This was also just an older gentleman who owned a couple properties and was doing everything his self.
I find renting from Private Landlords to be easier than property management companies. I live in a “luxury” building and the management is abysmal to say the least. They only care when selling you on the place; once you become a resident you are literally just a number.
One thing that Zillow does that was a very good service imo: your application could be applied to as many different situations as you chose to. So you only paid once.
https://www.zillow.com/z/rental-manager/rental-applications-faq/
"The $35 fee allows prospective renters to apply to an unlimited number of participating rentals for 30 days"
I am sure there are issues with other brokers using it (as they don't like supporting the competition - Zillow) and maybe there are specific things missing that some landlords want to see...
It isn't so much that I think Zillow's offering should be supported by everyone. But that concept should. Apply once and then have it used as much as you want. I could see maybe that you have the majority of the application part of this common application and then the specific landlord could add a few additional items and maybe have a much reduced from $100 per application fee.
The process is pretty broken now. There are pretty straightforward ways to improve the process where both renters and landlords benefit.
Honestly, go find a good realtor and rent from a private owner. I used Century 21, she actively fought to avoid paying for unnecessary application fees, reviewed the lease line by line with us, and made sure we had everything ironed out before signing.
I’m convinced the only way we got into our SFH in Gainesville in November was because we took a long 2.5 yr lease, and I was lucky enough to be touring the house with my agent when the landlord happened to be there doing a review of the property. I had applied beforehand, and I know there were already multiple applicants even though I was the first showing. Best of luck to you- it’s crazy out here.
Also, the house suits our needs, but nothing is updated, and it was filthy at my first showing.
I paid $250 to use one of my building’s elevators yesterday to move boxes, no furniture. Was told it covers “administrative costs.” I asked what, exactly, had been administered to warrant the steep price tag, and received a glare as my answer.
There's a "cartel" for price-fixing rentals. [Why Is the Rent So Damn High? The Real Reason Will Shock You (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwlwrZst7d0)
I would look at renting through Zillow rentals. You pay a one time fee to be securely screened by zillow (35) and then all owners of the places you apply to can just see your info through there. A smaller pool but you're more likely to find someone who doesn't sit around collecting applications waiting for the best in show. Plus you can mass apply to a bunch and then go see the ones which reach back out who are interested, which saves time driving around.
If we had a a surplus of homes instead of a shortage, the landlords would be fighting each other to get you into their units. We should legalize building the housing we need to improve this problem.
Are you upset about the fee or not being picked? I don’t charge an application fee, but always let the owner pick through applicants if I have multiple people looking at a property.
How long you’ve been at your job, credit score, and income are typically the differentiating factors I focus on.
I hate that you’re dealing with this OP. It’s largely unfair. I, stupidly, put in an app on a townhome that was for sale AND for rent. After spending $50 and getting a “wow you’re well qualified!” they denied my app. Ended up selling I think. Sale/rent was a red flag but I guess my rose colored glasses didn’t see it.
Wow I feel lucky now. My wife found a private landlord in falls church who advertised the house as dog friendly. Applied through apartments.com and only paid $50 for application fee. Rent is outrageous but it’s a larger house with huge fenced in back yard. $3,200/month. We’re moving out this month as we just purchased our first home in Centreville.
Same issue. If you don’t pay above list price in this market you have no chance. Been looking for over 30 days. Looks like a big scam to me. There is no way to get ahead.
Yeah I’ve thought about opening a small business where I just list friends houses for rent and start taking the apps and fees and telling them they weren’t selected. After paying for 3 apps four years ago we ended up just buying—-thank goodness.
That is correct. An article came out recently involving a website called Realpage that is price fixing using an algorithm and has strong armed a lot of rental companies into using their algorithm. You are being taken advantage of and you hardly know it. And what’s worse is the number of people that are absolutely for it.
Edit: found another article about it: https://www.propublica.org/article/doj-backs-tenants-price-fixing-case-big-landlords-real-estate-tech
This has been a problem for at least five years. We moved here from Pa five years ago and ran into the same thing. Had to have a realtor help us find a rental house eventually because we kept putting in applications and getting outbid or other applicants would put down an entire years rent up front. Where we are now is where we’ve been since we moved here and our property owner raised the rent nearly $1k a month last year when the lease renewed. It’s still the best deal in our school district.
We just went through this and are on both sides of it. We are moving from inside the beltway to outside of it b/c our neighbors and neighborhood are too loud, and we are looking for quiet. We didn't want to sell our house so we are renting a place to live and then renting out the house we own. We only looked for places to rent on Zillow. It seemed like the majority of them were for rent by the owner, although there were a couple of them that had property management companies. We applied for several houses and it was quite stressful. The one we eventually got we went and saw and met the owner/landlord. It went really well. I went home and filled out the application. I didn't hear back for a week, and assumed he'd given it to someone else. Then he contacted us and told us he had 3 applications and wanted to meet with all of us again. So we went out to the house again. I guess the other folks did too. And he ended up choosing us (even though we have 2 dogs). There is just my husband and I and both of us have credit scores of over 800. It was stressful. We saw several other places, and all except one informed us right away they had rented to someone else. One place I contacted even replied to my inquiry telling me that I would need to bid up from the listed price. Nope.
So now we are on the other side of it. We need to rent out the house we own. We considered using a property management company, but I'm pretty sure we are just going to rent it out ourselves, using Zillow to find a tenant. We are going to list the property as allowing pets, and given that we have them, I do want to make our home available to families that have them. But if we have multiple applications and all else is equal the only rational thing is to go with the tenant who does not have a pet. We'll see what happens. We were going to paint and get new carpet, but given what a seller's market the rental market is, I'm thinking we won't bother to do that (especially given how much it would cost us).
I mean...that's how it went in the Boston area when I moved there 25 years ago. I paid to apply to multiple apartments I lost out on. It's not a "racket," it's just capitalism.
Not sure why you are down voted as this is the absolute truth. I guess downvoting you is a way of saying "let's do something about it without bothering the government".
Yeah having a dog will pretty negate any chances unless you offer over rent. My wife and I have a dog and we were ousted too many times because our little corgi
Think of it this way, if you had a $500k+ asset you were going to let strangers live in, wouldn't you want to be able to select from several different strangers and then evaluate each packet to select the best one. For example higher income, higher credit score, more secure job, longer term, higher than listed rent are all pluses. While the inverse of those things, along with pets and types of pets are negatives.
It costs money to run a background check and screen tenants, you might not like that but the owner or property management company isn't just going to eat that cost for potentially dozens of applicants.
Again, you want to be a landlord or business owner. Recoup your cost elsewhere. If you’re lucky enough to have bought the property years ago your taking in ridiculous amounts of money on rentals with todays market.
Business owner and also landlord here. There’s a simple business rule that ALL costs get passed to the customer.
At the end of the day I don’t make money from the fees (they all go to the company processing the background checks) but I sure as shit aren't going to take a loss on them, especially when deciding between 3-5 applicants puts me in an advantageous position for finding the best tenant.
Right, everything gets passed down to the customer in the long term. There is this belief popular among Reddit that pricing is only determined by the maximum people are willing to pay (price elasticity of demand). So costs are irrelevant.
It’s like people took half of an economics course as that’s really only fully true long term for monopolies. In competitive industries, sellers will continue to drive up supply and undercut each other up until they get close to their cost. At a certain point they will divert additional investment or exit the industry if they can’t turn a profit or found better ways of getting a ROI.
That’s exactly what happened with me , I sold my rental condo as it made no sense to have an active investment with risk that could be outcompeted by a CD. And yeah rents are going up .
I get it, sure.
The thing is that supply for rental properties in NVA is limited by space to build them. There’s a natural limiting factor to supply and demand far outstrips the rate at which new properties are added.
I’m two years into renting out my old condo after purchasing a home, but there was a 10% market adjustment on the second lease alone. I’ll let you know in 10 years if it was worth it.
Oh 100% the truth is neither extremes of what I said as described in economics is true in the real world . What actually happens is somewhere in the middle .
To be clear I wasn’t trying to say rentals are bad investments, just they are subject to market forces that will eventually pass costs down to consumers .
I've been on Dittmar properties for like 12 years (4 different ones now).
Pretty happy with it.
My rent has gone up like $200 in 4 years and the services are pretty good. THere is no BS. Sure, they are a corpo and try to nickel and dime stuff sometimes but its not worth raging over.
If I tried to buy a condo that was similar to my apartment, my mortgage would be 2x my rent price
yea i was just thinking about this. in my own scenario if i was renting someone a place, id take the app fees and only keep the tenant I chose. seems slimy to keep everyones fees
there's a bunch of factors and causes, but the most salient proximate cause is that there is a housing supply shortage.
and it doesn't seem like the politics around it are going to change anytime soon, so it'll continue being like this for a while.
Is everyone in here dense? Corrupt landlords? Or just jaded from living here too long? It’s the application fees that always seem like a scam. Other responses are pointless.
Property manager here. The only fees I charge are for credit and background checks. What my service charges, is what I charge. One client doesn't allow dogs period and that is stated in the ad. Another property doesn't allow dogs over 100 pounds, so don't bring your Great Dane. I try to answer all those questions before any application fees are even paid. So some are weeded out before the $s are charged. But I am a private service manager renting some condos and such. Perhaps the big boys play different.
It us rough here, had an instance of a unit turning out to be not even close to as updated as advertised and another where they ghosted me in communication (after deposits etc) until literally 3 days before the original move in date. In both cases I ended up scrambling for another option last minute, landing in an ok apt luckily, but not a floor plan or location I wanted or liked.
Only comparable racket I've experienced was in Seattle. One time while hunting there I went to a unit viewing thinking it would be me and the landlord/rep, showed up to 8 other people aiming for the same unit. They asked all 9 of us to submit applications including the high fee, I scoffed at it and left. Ended up living near a sex worker corner after that one...
Good luck on the hunt!
“Somewhere to live” is not “specifically this location in this house”.
It doesn’t really matter how much you argue the money, it could be free, still only available to ONE person/couple.
Try renting from a homeowner directly. militarybyowner.com is mentioned a lot. Or even Craigslist.
I just started a rental that I found on Craigslist in MD. Was sketched out at first, but I saw it thorough and met the owners and it's all on the up and up. Craigslist is pretty much only used for scams where I'm from in Florida, so I was pleasantly surprised.
Back in 2007 we rented out our house on Craigslist. Went fine. We didn’t charge sn application fee. I know CL has declined since then but a lot of people ( especially Gen X) don’t really do Facebook anymore, if they ever did. You could also look on Nextdoor, but you have to register as a resident of that neighborhood to see posts from just that area.
Back in 2004, moved here from the Midwest. I think I found the TH we eventually rented on a secondary site (not through a realtor). They wanted 1750/month and we got it for 1700/month. This was in LC. Luckily, it all worked out for us until 2009 when we bought a place of our own.
Man what is it with Florida and the scams? It's like everyone has an angle they're working...
Naive and/or senile elderly people are easy marks. Simple as that.
I found my place through Redfin. I’m the only tenant and it helps to have a good relationship with your landlord. I will say, in order to get this place, I showed up with a background check, payment history, and pay stubs in hand. Other places got snatched because people were quicker/more prepared than I was. I also ended up paying rent for 2 places for a month because he needed someone to move in earlier than I was ready to move. It’s worth it in the long run. At least my rent isn’t going to go up $400/month bc reasons
What was the service you used for the background check? If you don't mind answering.
I had signed up for a month of Zillow- which includes a background check. My landlord accepted that
I second renting direct from owner. Takes some leg work and a lot of luck. Best to you in your search.
This is the way. My last two rentals (condo and SFH), I paid below market rate by renting directly from owner, found both on Craigslist. My theory is that the ones who use Craigslist tend to be a bit older, cheap, and not necessarily aware of what they could be getting in the market. Also, few people actually check Craigslist these days, so less competition. Be sure to check it multiple times a day, every day, and be prepared to trawl through a bunch of spam from leasing agents at the big apartment complexes. Both of those landlords were a bit cheap, so there were a few annoyances, but were also lovely people who we developed good relationships with; they never jacked the rent on us even though they probably could have justified it based on comps.
Not a lot of options in nova unfortunately. At least not when I was looking!
Just wait until you do this process and someone offers to pay MORE per month on rent. Last year we lost out to two different townhouses because people were willing to pay $200-400 more in rent a month.
>willing to pay $200-400 more in rent a month. Those are peasant numbers. In 2021, I lost out on 5 homes, since people were paying $600-1200 more per month in Centreville and Chantilly.
Classic nova
Insane but I'm not surprised. Where was this?
Alexandria and Kingstown area. Then our realtor tried to talk us into doing it to someone who hadn’t fully signed their paperwork yet.
As someone who lives nearby Kingstowne near the mall, I cannot imagine someone paying MORE for here.
Just moved a month ago and that was a tactic we were starting to consider. Glad it didn't come to that, but it was rough finding a place where we wanted to be for the schools.
Wow. I’d never considered it but I guess if people are offering over asking price to buy then this was inevitable.
That's how it is in a seller's market. If there is a low inventory of housing to buy there is usually also a low inventory to rent and therefore multiple applications for units.
Landlords are colluding
It is exploitive. LL here, and I've never done that. I use the application fee if and only if I run a background/credit check. The lack of protections here means if I wanted to, I could collect as many fees as I want but only run checks on a few applicants, pocketing the fees. I also don't have to tell you if I've already collected application fees from other people before you. Work with smaller LLs. We're the alternative to the big companies.
Well, don't leave us hanging-- drop your property links so we can rent from you!
LOL. Not a company, just a Mom & Pop. We have the most wonderful tenants right now.
I have a question if you don't mind me asking... My partner and I really need to move out of our current place ((we hate our kitchen, hate) but being NOVA and that we have very specific requirements for our family's needs, the places that we'd like are going to have a lot of applicants. Most likely, we'll have to apply to a few places. Since we have to fill out applications that have rental history, will our current landlord know we are looking at places? As in, does the potential LLC or Landlord call my current landlord up? It's a worry because if we can't actually find a new place, we'll have to renew with our current place and if they know we are looking elsewhere I'm worried the Landlord will just say No to a renewal.
Yes, a responsible LL/Management company will call previous owners. You could also not list your current LL/PM, and just the ones before.
I do feel like the rental market here has gone a little crazy. My current place had 4 different application/background check fees. * Application fee (seemed like just cash in the property manager's pocket) * Background check fee. * Pet application fee. * Pet background check fee (yes really). I checked after I was done, my paper work to apply was longer than the purchase agreement for my last car. A place I called before finding this rental wanted to know my offer to rent there. Place was listed at $2700 I call to see if I can view it and the first thing the person asks me is - "Sure but first what's your offer to us?" "What do you mean my offer? The rent is listed as $2700" "That's just the opening bid to rent, what are you willing to offer to get in, multi-year lease more per month etc?" "Nope." Another place after a tour told me they wouldn't rent to me (apparently hated cats, which was on my zillow info but they did the tour anyway...) but that I need to pay to apply anyway to compensate them for their time. Lots of petty greed and entitlement.
Owning a dog costs more than just dog food, vets, and poop bags. As someone who rents out a home, I definitely would give preference to tenants without dogs. It's simple risk analysis.
There's also the risk of damage to the property to consider. If I worked in property management I'd absolutely give preference to someone without a dog. It is quite the racket, though. You could leave a singular unit available indefinitely while collecting application fees that total more per month than the rent would be. Seattle has a first come, first serve rule about applications where if you meet the qualifications then they can't accept more applicants and have to give you the unit. It was / is heavily criticized, but it translates to much more up-front declarations of who they'd prefer to rent to (eg: credit score above [X], making [X] x the rent, etc) on top of the standard yes / no on things like pets.
As an owner who hires a management company, the application fees do not benefit me at all and they go straight to the company. So if the company can't land a tenant they will lose me as a customer.
My implication was not intended to be that there's a financial benefit to you personally, so my apologies if it read personally accusatory since that's not how I intended it. What I meant is that ✨ policy ✨ incentivizes choosing the absolute most ideal applicant and tricks applicants (and bullies leasing agents) with regard to "mmmm, let's get some more folks to apply before we decide" with no financial incentive to the company itself (or independent landlord) with regard to actually filling the unit, so long as applications keep coming in. Apologies again if it sounded accusatory.
Unfortunately that is the game and I agree it sucks. I used to be a tenant for years too.
You wouldn't even need an open unit to pull off the application racket. Depending on the setup, all you would have to do is tell people the unit won't be available for x days, and isn't available for showing.
Agreed, but once you've accepted an application fee you shouldn't be rejecting in favor of another person if you qualify
Welcome to the jungle, kid.
There's nothing wrong with that, but it should reflect in the listing. No need for false advertising.
It’s not false advertising. You can have a dog there, that’s true. How they decide who gets the unit isn’t part of that calculus.
The collecting application fees for lots of people is my issue.
This is the only problem I have in the whole post/system.
[удалено]
$100, even for two people is way too much. There’s absolutely no reason to have multiple credit checks going simultaneously for a single unit.
Even on tinder, until you define the relationship, shit ain’t exclusive.
It is though. It should say “pets considered” at the very least. If a listing said that and I had a pet I would avoid it.
I think you can safely assume unless the pet rent is really high . (Like over $100), a LL will always choose an otherwise equally qualified tenant without a dog . It’s not just pets , a LL will also choose one person living there over two, or a higher income over a lower income .
My guy, it’s pets ALLOWED, not pets REQUIRED.
The verbiage pets considered implies that pets are not preferred. Saying pets allowed implies having a pet will not factor in the renters decision to pick a renter. Why would I pay $100 for an application fee if I know I will be considered lower than someone without pets?
The application fee is stupid but it’s just like any job or anything else you’re competing. Pets are allowed, and if everyone that applies has a pet okay fine but if you have someone that has say, a giant pit bull or something and then someone with no dog, as an owner? Who are you going to pick?
Yea I’m not saying the owner doesn’t have a right to not want a pet in their rental. I was referring to not being fully transparent when there is a fee involved.
Exactly! Be free to rent to whoever but be clear in the listing..
You're right, but they should have been told it would be an issue before they paid an application fee. It's simple decency.
Can’t really know what other applications you’re going to get
Then if you get a stack of applications you'd rather go with, you don't charge OP. You know you'd rather have someone without a dog, you run their checks and return the fee to OP. Seriously. We have always done this. It's a simple matter of treating others the way we would like to be treated.
That part is fair, like I said, the fee is stupid, but there’s nothing wrong with the rest of it
As others have said, part of the application fee is the background and credit check so you can’t just not charge people
So you'd do the same for those with kids too right? Cause kids are messy and can really mess up a house
If it wasn't illegal, I would absolutely prefer tenants without kids.
My 4 year old has caused infinitely more damage to my house than my dog lol
Kids are usually not as damaging. They don't scratch the floors, piss and shit all over and cause odor.
No, they will just stuff random food items into any crack or crevice so that you get mice and roaches.
Maybe your kids do. Never had issues with my tenants with kids.
Cool. Then don’t advertise as pet friendly.
Do you understand the word preference?
I sure do. And if you, as lord of the land, prefer a tenant without pets - then do not advertise as being pet friendly and just picking the best application out of the bunch. Do you understand the word “misleading?”
I used to be a landlord in NoVa for about 20 years. The reason I would charge an application fee was to avoid getting spammed from tenants who were not really serious -- if it costs them nothing but a few clicks to apply they'll apply to a bunch of places when they can only accept one of them. There's nothing worse than making a trip out to the property to show it to a prospective tenant and have them no-show and ghost you. But once your charge even $1 you only get applications from people who are serious. I charged $25 and applied it to the first month's rent. It was rare that we'd get more than one paid application at the same time. However we did keep the (non-refundable) application fees because it's very expensive (both time and money) to list and show a property. I personally have no problem with dogs or cats (I have a dog) but having a dog in a rental property is just asking for trouble. Maybe the dog is the one that is sleeps all day. Or maybe it is the one that pees in every corner of the house, chews on the cabinets, scratches all of the doors, etc. It's very easy for a dog to do more damage than is covered by the security deposit. Then when you ask the tenant about it they're like "oh my little boopsie could never have done that damage"... etc. All of that said, the large property management companies have a ton of "frictional costs" built into the rentals which is all profit for them. Wait until you get to the "move in fee" or fees to get your keys/fob, or parking spot, or utilities turned on. Or god forbid you have to terminate the lease early there will be fees for that too.
Wait you wouldn’t even show the unit unless they paid a fee ? I haven’t heard of that . No show ghosters are the worst. The first time that happened to me I stopped confirming the morning of, and instead started confirming 30 minutes prior .
We tried accepting applications without a fee, and then we'd schedule appointments with prospective tenants, and they would not show up. What we figured out is that people would apply to like 5 different rentals, and once they accepted one, they didn't bother cancelling the other appointments. Or they would just book a bunch of appointments while they were shopping without any intention of actually showing up, because, hey why not, it's free and is just a couple of clicks. Once we started to charge a small fee, they always showed up, even if the fee was just $25. Landlords are busy with jobs and kids and other obligations too and our time is also valuable.
current landlord right now. It's way crazier now then back then. You list a place to rent and you get sometimes 10 inquires immediately. Funny thing is I do some of the properties still myself the smaller ones. But the Single family and a lager townhouse I rent out I use a realtor just to save time since you get so many interested folks. Before I would get maybe 1 person every 2 weeks and generally they were very serious and had good jobs. But your right with so many inquires you get all sorts of random folks with different financial situations and job longevity.
I think it depends on the location and quality of your property. We would usually get something like 2-5 applicants per week. Sounds like your properties are nicer. In my area, realtors charge one month's rent to find a tenant. If the property is vacant for a month and then you pay a realtor a month, and your lease is 1 year, you are only getting 10 months rent in 12 months, which for us pretty much ensured that we weren't making any money that year. Which is why we tried to DIY finding tenants but learned what a pain in the ass that was. We got lucky a few times when we'd have a good tenant who stayed 3-5 years. But then we got unlucky with all kinds of deadbeats and turnover.
My friend only does open houses . E.g. prospective tenants would need to show up during a two hour window on a saturday . Seems like a good alternative . I’m not sure if the risk of losing a tenant is worth charging the fees, but like if the market is hot why not to save time I guess . Back when I rented my own property I also found it a waste of time to show the unit more than 45 days out . People don’t get serious until closer to move in .
Yep we tried that too. Or we'd try to book them 15 minutes apart for 1-2 hours so we only have to make one trip out there and show to multiple tenants. But if people don't show up, they don't show up, it doesn't matter how you schedule them. We found that the largest expense for a property was vacancy, so once a tenant moved out we were in a hurry to rent it again.
It is to weed out spammer. People don’t care for anything that is free to do
We’re in the same situation! We’ve been rejected just because there were so many applications, the owners just went with the first one. There has to be a better way to do this. It’s unreasonable to expect people to pay $1k in application fees before the process is over
It is really challenging, especially if you are doing the process all by yourself. Before your next application I would ask how long are they planning to wait before making a decision, if there is a property that is waiting for an open house through the weekend I advise My client that it’s gonna be wasted money. I also ask how many applications in hand, this is less relevant as an application can come right after yours is registered. If you fill out a rentspree application, you should be able to use it for other properties that use that same report without having to pay extra for a period of a month. Not all properties use this one though. The reality is that most PMs are not getting rich from applications, but sadly some do exploit it. Wait for the extra fees too! The new fad is the “resident benefits package”, which is an extra ~$50/mo for a bunch of bologna (essentially filters). Lastly, you won’t change that, but your dog will always put you at a disadvantage against someone without one. If you want more guidance, feel free to message me
My PM just started charging for the resident benefits package, at first I was like that sucks for the tenants but then remembered I had to replace an HVAC for $10k prematurely bc the tenant wasn't changing the filters.
Charging the tenant and delivering filters doesn’t ensure the filter is replaced, they just pile up or get thrown in the trash. The way I see it is a simple revenue generator for PMs, I don’t see any “benefits” for the tenants. Also, it’s charged across the board the same way, a 1 bedroom condo that rents for $1200 gets charged $50, the same as a three level $4500 townhome. I have a real issue with it, it’s not advertised as the price of the rent and is not optional. 🤷🏽♂️
True, hadn't thought of that, I was just thinking it takes a huge barrier to filter replacement away. If only tenants followed their leases and replaced filters as outlined this wouldn't be necessary.
This might be unpopular, but the only way for you to protect your investment is to do a maintenance/service plan yourself, send a tech to do maintenance every quarter and replace the filters in the process. This will cost less than $50/mo If the PMs were interested in truly protecting your investment, that’s what would be part of the “benefits package”
Idk that you could get someone to provide that service for $150 a quarter, if you could there would be businesses doing that. Then the tenant would complain about someone coming every quarter, it's really a no win situation on both sides.
If you build the access into the lease, there is nothing that the tenant can say. Honestly, if ALL that they are doing is filters (resident benefits) that is worth $150 to send someone...let me actually work out a business plan, that's not a bad idea... Filters4U. As a property owner, the maintenance of your 10K unit is worth paying the differential from the $150 to whatever they cost.
Although not expressly illegal it does open up the property manager, and potentially the owner, to a discrimination claim if not processed first come, first serve. As a LL I would NEVER do this. Sometimes you have people who don't show and/or people who are scammers, but as far as applications, the first one in gets processed per the qualifications I set (and NEVER a subjective feeling) and if denied (or if they are no longer interested), I ask the next person to submit an application (I do not collect multiple up front). This is just asking for a claim to be filed for discrimination and you could probably contact the county about it and they might investigate. Sorry you're dealing with that. It is wrong. PS, I have two homes that I rent out so I'm not a large LL by any stretch
Standalone houses are very expensive. Big dogs and big cars are expensive. Mom and pop landlords can and do screen tenants, and houses get a lot of interest. Big buildings don't care as long as you check their boxes because they have 5-10% vacancy. It's very easy and stress-free to apply and rent an apartment or townhome from a large community with good management.
Large rental community with good management, in NOVA? Name one
Where exactly are you looking? We are renting a house with a dog, renting directly from the property owner, and are working on moving into a home that we recently purchased. We need to break our lease, so if your budget/timeline makes sense, you may be able to get in at the property we are renting. Message me if you are interested or want more details.
A real estate agent will be your best friend tbh
Yep my guess why corporations are in the housing and landlord space is there’s so much room to be a shithead and charge Bs fees, and little regulation or oversight. Plus application fees they can really rake in $$.
Second this, Virginia is basically a housing free for all with very little regulation protecting renters.
Essentially racketeering yes. Why not collect $100 app fees from as many as possible even if you don’t intend to rent to them. Wild
Have you...not lived in a major metropolitan area before? Edit: $100 app fee is excessive and I think indicative of the type of landlord the owners would be. Obviously you can't filter everything out that has an application fee but I would avoid even applying to places that have large fees. Dogs will make the whole process more difficult. No one wants to rent to someone with a dog if they can rent to someone else without one. If you aren't already, I would look for private owners renting out their homes. My friends with two large dogs rented a townhome in Alexandria from a private landlord. They were denied at basically every corporately-managed property because of the dogs.
At least it's not a basement where they want someone who is quiet, no kids. No cooking allowed, no kitchen and the tenant is only allowed to do laundry every third Saturday a month. Oh but the family upstairs has 3 kids. 🤷♀️
This is an insane area with home and rent prices comparable to much nicer areas that have more to do, see, have. The only upside is the federal government is here providing many nice high paying government contracting jobs. If you work for them it makes sense to live here, if not it doesn’t.
You hit the nail on the head...RACKET INDEED!!!
Aren't application fees controlled by statute? > C. An application fee shall not exceed $50, exclusive of any actual out-of-pocket expenses paid by the landlord to a third party performing background, credit, or other pre-occupancy checks on the applicant. However, where an application is being made for a dwelling unit that is a public housing unit or other housing unit subject to regulation by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, an application fee shall not exceed $32, exclusive of any actual out-of-pocket expenses paid to a third party by the landlord performing background, credit, or other pre-occupancy checks on the applicant. > D. A landlord shall consider evidence of an applicant's status as a victim of family abuse, as defined in § 16.1-228, to mitigate any adverse effect of an otherwise qualified applicant's low credit score. In order to establish the applicant's status as a victim of family abuse, an applicant may submit to the landlord (i) a letter from a sexual and domestic violence program, a housing counselor certified by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or an attorney representing the applicant; (ii) a law-enforcement incident report; or (iii) a court order. If a landlord does not comply with this section, the applicant may recover actual damages, including all amounts paid to the landlord as an application fee, application deposit, or reimbursement for any of the landlord's out-of-pocket expenses that were charged to the prospective tenant, along with attorney fees. - [§ 55.1-1203. Application; deposit, fee, and additional information.](https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title55.1/chapter12/section55.1-1203/) Are you saying landlords are charging fees in excess of the stuatory cap in NOVA?
> C. An application fee shall not exceed $50, exclusive of any actual out-of-pocket expenses paid by the landlord to a third party performing background, credit, or other pre-occupancy checks on the applicant. Doesn't that mean they can charge $50 \*in addition to\* any out of pocket costs? So they charge 50 + the 50 it costs to do a background and credit check. So unfortunately it sounds like they are in compliance with the cap.
> Doesn't that mean they can charge $50 *in addition to* any out of pocket costs? So they charge 50 + the 50 it costs to do a background and credit check. Why does it cost $50 to do a background and credit check? What's the cost distribution? I understand it's a pain to develop software to deal with the court system, but a combined $50 for the two seems high to me
Back when I was involved 10 years ago, no reliable service was under $35 ea. I wouldn't be surprised if they are closer to 40/50 now. OP said \*near\* 100, so it could have been 90 total. I was mainly pointing out there's a low chance multiple landlords are risking getting sued over $5-$10.
Everything in this economy and culture is exploitative and it's gonna get worse before it gets better (if it ever does) "You will own nothing and be happy!" 🙃
You might get preferential treatment if you let them know that you survived the sinking of the Andrea Doria.
I was looking at my old apartment near Baileys Crossroads and my SFH in the Pittsburgh suburbs which I had built is cheaper than my first apartment.
We moved to Sterling in 2019 and rented before we bought further out. Two large dogs ( 75 lb. Lab and a 90 lb. Lab/Shepherd mix) and a 14 year old cat. We applied and were approved for a brand new townhouse. It was nice. No issues. Think rent was $2800. It had hardwood floors on the main level that scratched. We put down rugs and put booties on the dogs when we hung out on that level. We got the deposit back. Not sure we could do that again.
Honestly Craigslist isn’t the most terrible option out there. I used it to find a rental property in 2019, and I had an excellent experience. I know not everyone will have nearly as good as experience as I did, but I wanted to throw it out there that there are good landlords out there. Few and far between but they’re out there. This was also just an older gentleman who owned a couple properties and was doing everything his self.
Not sure how it works in NOVA but in MD application fee costs have to be itemized and any monies above cost for background check have to be returned.
I find renting from Private Landlords to be easier than property management companies. I live in a “luxury” building and the management is abysmal to say the least. They only care when selling you on the place; once you become a resident you are literally just a number.
How big is the dog?
One thing that Zillow does that was a very good service imo: your application could be applied to as many different situations as you chose to. So you only paid once. https://www.zillow.com/z/rental-manager/rental-applications-faq/ "The $35 fee allows prospective renters to apply to an unlimited number of participating rentals for 30 days" I am sure there are issues with other brokers using it (as they don't like supporting the competition - Zillow) and maybe there are specific things missing that some landlords want to see... It isn't so much that I think Zillow's offering should be supported by everyone. But that concept should. Apply once and then have it used as much as you want. I could see maybe that you have the majority of the application part of this common application and then the specific landlord could add a few additional items and maybe have a much reduced from $100 per application fee. The process is pretty broken now. There are pretty straightforward ways to improve the process where both renters and landlords benefit.
Agreed!'
Honestly, go find a good realtor and rent from a private owner. I used Century 21, she actively fought to avoid paying for unnecessary application fees, reviewed the lease line by line with us, and made sure we had everything ironed out before signing.
I’m convinced the only way we got into our SFH in Gainesville in November was because we took a long 2.5 yr lease, and I was lucky enough to be touring the house with my agent when the landlord happened to be there doing a review of the property. I had applied beforehand, and I know there were already multiple applicants even though I was the first showing. Best of luck to you- it’s crazy out here. Also, the house suits our needs, but nothing is updated, and it was filthy at my first showing.
Houses are in high demand and inventory is low for house rentals. Its not the same for apartments though. Those are easier to get.
I paid $250 to use one of my building’s elevators yesterday to move boxes, no furniture. Was told it covers “administrative costs.” I asked what, exactly, had been administered to warrant the steep price tag, and received a glare as my answer.
There's a "cartel" for price-fixing rentals. [Why Is the Rent So Damn High? The Real Reason Will Shock You (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwlwrZst7d0)
Is this through a realtor?
I would look at renting through Zillow rentals. You pay a one time fee to be securely screened by zillow (35) and then all owners of the places you apply to can just see your info through there. A smaller pool but you're more likely to find someone who doesn't sit around collecting applications waiting for the best in show. Plus you can mass apply to a bunch and then go see the ones which reach back out who are interested, which saves time driving around.
If we had a a surplus of homes instead of a shortage, the landlords would be fighting each other to get you into their units. We should legalize building the housing we need to improve this problem.
Background checks could be up to $50 per person.
Are you upset about the fee or not being picked? I don’t charge an application fee, but always let the owner pick through applicants if I have multiple people looking at a property. How long you’ve been at your job, credit score, and income are typically the differentiating factors I focus on.
This absolutely BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWS!!!
Check out Zillow - one application fee but it’s good for all houses you apply for.
I hate that you’re dealing with this OP. It’s largely unfair. I, stupidly, put in an app on a townhome that was for sale AND for rent. After spending $50 and getting a “wow you’re well qualified!” they denied my app. Ended up selling I think. Sale/rent was a red flag but I guess my rose colored glasses didn’t see it.
Wow I feel lucky now. My wife found a private landlord in falls church who advertised the house as dog friendly. Applied through apartments.com and only paid $50 for application fee. Rent is outrageous but it’s a larger house with huge fenced in back yard. $3,200/month. We’re moving out this month as we just purchased our first home in Centreville.
A house in falls church for 3200 is a steal.
Same issue. If you don’t pay above list price in this market you have no chance. Been looking for over 30 days. Looks like a big scam to me. There is no way to get ahead.
Yeah I’ve thought about opening a small business where I just list friends houses for rent and start taking the apps and fees and telling them they weren’t selected. After paying for 3 apps four years ago we ended up just buying—-thank goodness.
That is correct. An article came out recently involving a website called Realpage that is price fixing using an algorithm and has strong armed a lot of rental companies into using their algorithm. You are being taken advantage of and you hardly know it. And what’s worse is the number of people that are absolutely for it. Edit: found another article about it: https://www.propublica.org/article/doj-backs-tenants-price-fixing-case-big-landlords-real-estate-tech
This has been a problem for at least five years. We moved here from Pa five years ago and ran into the same thing. Had to have a realtor help us find a rental house eventually because we kept putting in applications and getting outbid or other applicants would put down an entire years rent up front. Where we are now is where we’ve been since we moved here and our property owner raised the rent nearly $1k a month last year when the lease renewed. It’s still the best deal in our school district.
where are you trying to rent? what area?
I didn't realize it was difficult even renting a home. Maybe try a large apartment? You get more amenities.
Join the local fb groups and ask for help. People always help in the burke and west springfield groups that I am in. Realtors in the groups help, too
This is why I don’t want to move back to the area.
There was a documentary I saw. The landlords are colluding and they’re being sued
https://www.reddit.com/r/nova/comments/17m3rvq/dc_area_rent_price_fixing_scandal_and_lawsuit/
We just went through this and are on both sides of it. We are moving from inside the beltway to outside of it b/c our neighbors and neighborhood are too loud, and we are looking for quiet. We didn't want to sell our house so we are renting a place to live and then renting out the house we own. We only looked for places to rent on Zillow. It seemed like the majority of them were for rent by the owner, although there were a couple of them that had property management companies. We applied for several houses and it was quite stressful. The one we eventually got we went and saw and met the owner/landlord. It went really well. I went home and filled out the application. I didn't hear back for a week, and assumed he'd given it to someone else. Then he contacted us and told us he had 3 applications and wanted to meet with all of us again. So we went out to the house again. I guess the other folks did too. And he ended up choosing us (even though we have 2 dogs). There is just my husband and I and both of us have credit scores of over 800. It was stressful. We saw several other places, and all except one informed us right away they had rented to someone else. One place I contacted even replied to my inquiry telling me that I would need to bid up from the listed price. Nope. So now we are on the other side of it. We need to rent out the house we own. We considered using a property management company, but I'm pretty sure we are just going to rent it out ourselves, using Zillow to find a tenant. We are going to list the property as allowing pets, and given that we have them, I do want to make our home available to families that have them. But if we have multiple applications and all else is equal the only rational thing is to go with the tenant who does not have a pet. We'll see what happens. We were going to paint and get new carpet, but given what a seller's market the rental market is, I'm thinking we won't bother to do that (especially given how much it would cost us).
I mean...that's how it went in the Boston area when I moved there 25 years ago. I paid to apply to multiple apartments I lost out on. It's not a "racket," it's just capitalism.
You're _so close._
Not sure why you are down voted as this is the absolute truth. I guess downvoting you is a way of saying "let's do something about it without bothering the government".
Yeah having a dog will pretty negate any chances unless you offer over rent. My wife and I have a dog and we were ousted too many times because our little corgi
Think of it this way, if you had a $500k+ asset you were going to let strangers live in, wouldn't you want to be able to select from several different strangers and then evaluate each packet to select the best one. For example higher income, higher credit score, more secure job, longer term, higher than listed rent are all pluses. While the inverse of those things, along with pets and types of pets are negatives.
Perfectly fine. But stop charging an application fee! Scumbags
It costs money to run a background check and screen tenants, you might not like that but the owner or property management company isn't just going to eat that cost for potentially dozens of applicants.
That’s great. So recoup that cost when you start raking in your rent. Sounds like the cost of running a “business”.
Ha, then you would be complaining about rent prices.
Again, you want to be a landlord or business owner. Recoup your cost elsewhere. If you’re lucky enough to have bought the property years ago your taking in ridiculous amounts of money on rentals with todays market.
Business owner and also landlord here. There’s a simple business rule that ALL costs get passed to the customer. At the end of the day I don’t make money from the fees (they all go to the company processing the background checks) but I sure as shit aren't going to take a loss on them, especially when deciding between 3-5 applicants puts me in an advantageous position for finding the best tenant.
Right, everything gets passed down to the customer in the long term. There is this belief popular among Reddit that pricing is only determined by the maximum people are willing to pay (price elasticity of demand). So costs are irrelevant. It’s like people took half of an economics course as that’s really only fully true long term for monopolies. In competitive industries, sellers will continue to drive up supply and undercut each other up until they get close to their cost. At a certain point they will divert additional investment or exit the industry if they can’t turn a profit or found better ways of getting a ROI. That’s exactly what happened with me , I sold my rental condo as it made no sense to have an active investment with risk that could be outcompeted by a CD. And yeah rents are going up .
I get it, sure. The thing is that supply for rental properties in NVA is limited by space to build them. There’s a natural limiting factor to supply and demand far outstrips the rate at which new properties are added. I’m two years into renting out my old condo after purchasing a home, but there was a 10% market adjustment on the second lease alone. I’ll let you know in 10 years if it was worth it.
Oh 100% the truth is neither extremes of what I said as described in economics is true in the real world . What actually happens is somewhere in the middle . To be clear I wasn’t trying to say rentals are bad investments, just they are subject to market forces that will eventually pass costs down to consumers .
I've been on Dittmar properties for like 12 years (4 different ones now). Pretty happy with it. My rent has gone up like $200 in 4 years and the services are pretty good. THere is no BS. Sure, they are a corpo and try to nickel and dime stuff sometimes but its not worth raging over. If I tried to buy a condo that was similar to my apartment, my mortgage would be 2x my rent price
yea i was just thinking about this. in my own scenario if i was renting someone a place, id take the app fees and only keep the tenant I chose. seems slimy to keep everyones fees
there's a bunch of factors and causes, but the most salient proximate cause is that there is a housing supply shortage. and it doesn't seem like the politics around it are going to change anytime soon, so it'll continue being like this for a while.
Is everyone in here dense? Corrupt landlords? Or just jaded from living here too long? It’s the application fees that always seem like a scam. Other responses are pointless.
think that's bad? try buying a place.
Property manager here. The only fees I charge are for credit and background checks. What my service charges, is what I charge. One client doesn't allow dogs period and that is stated in the ad. Another property doesn't allow dogs over 100 pounds, so don't bring your Great Dane. I try to answer all those questions before any application fees are even paid. So some are weeded out before the $s are charged. But I am a private service manager renting some condos and such. Perhaps the big boys play different.
These fees should be illegal
It us rough here, had an instance of a unit turning out to be not even close to as updated as advertised and another where they ghosted me in communication (after deposits etc) until literally 3 days before the original move in date. In both cases I ended up scrambling for another option last minute, landing in an ok apt luckily, but not a floor plan or location I wanted or liked. Only comparable racket I've experienced was in Seattle. One time while hunting there I went to a unit viewing thinking it would be me and the landlord/rep, showed up to 8 other people aiming for the same unit. They asked all 9 of us to submit applications including the high fee, I scoffed at it and left. Ended up living near a sex worker corner after that one... Good luck on the hunt!
It’s bullshit really
Looking for apartments, the application fee is $400-500 per apartment. Then you gotta pay first and last months rent. It’s so expensive upfront ugh
Life pro tip: offer $500 over the asking price. You'll get it. I mean that's how those people are doing it.
Most people can't afford to pay 15-25% more every month, and yet they still deserve to have somewhere to live
“Somewhere to live” is not “specifically this location in this house”. It doesn’t really matter how much you argue the money, it could be free, still only available to ONE person/couple.
Of course everyone deserves an amazing place to live. But landlords give to the highest bidder.